Popping 102 – Poppin for beginners

I would like to continue where we left off regarding Popping 101. In Popping 101 I wrote about one of the foundation of Popping (Hitting), and how to hit at the neck, chest, arms and legs with out moving around or dancing. Remember, the Fresno is like a basic hitting style. It’s pretty much what a lot of Poppers used to start off with their Popping.

I’m going to talk about hitting in transition with your Popping. I’m going to write about how to utilize the full dance floor while you are dancing. Here are some of the moves I will be talking about in this article: Twist-O-Flex, Side Step, Walk out, Walking in circle with a pivot and the general marching style. I’m going to write about how to utilize the full dance floor while you are dancing.

I will take this time to give a little information regarding these moves:

Twist-O-flex: This move is when you twist the top part of your body and the bottom will follow. This can be done in make different styles.

Side Step: When you step side way, here a little example: take your right leg and step cross your left leg and move your body to the left with a skip like motion. Your step side way with your right leg and then you skip back with your left leg. It looks like you are walking side way, and you hit while in the transition of the step.

Walk Out/step out: The walk out is similar to the side step but you are stepping forward on an angle. You also lean your body to the side of the leg you are walking with. So you take your left leg and cross the right leg as you lean your body to the left. Then you skip back with the right leg. You are doing a side step but you are stepping forward as you walk.

Walking in circle with a pivot: You hold the pivot with one leg and you walk around in a circle with the other leg. Here is a example: you are using your right leg as the pivot and you are walking around in a circle with your left leg. You can also go forward or backward with the walk.

ROTC marching style: You are basically marching with your walk. You look just like the ROTC or marching band. The only different is you are hitting as you are in the transition.

As you know in Popping 101 I wrote about the most common areas Poppers utilize while dancing. In Popping 102, I’m going to talk about hitting in transition. The first thing you want to do is develop your transition hitting. Lets’ start by doing a basic walk forward (this is very much little ROTC style marching), with the opposite arm extended with the right leg. As you walk keep-changing arms (make sure the opposite arm is out in front of you). So it goes like this, step forward, hit as you step, step forward with left leg, right arm extended in front of you and hit in the transition of the step. Then after so many steps you want to do a 90-degree flex, turn to you right and continue the transition (hitting as you walk forward).

After practicing this marching style walking and the different styles of flexes you want to practicing hitting with the side walk, so you can move side way. Hitting with the step out, so you can step out on an angle while you are moving side way. Sacin’ is basically another style of walking, it’s just bring a different walk type. Then last but not least is the Walking in circle with a pivot. What all these different walks/steps does is help you move from left to right, and forward and backward, and turn left or right and walk in circles.

You also want to consider the different angles that you can lean, and going from straight standing position to the bending over as you are hitting. Remember, What ever you do, try hitting in the transition when it comes to moving around as a Popper. You also can hit, hit, hit, then not hit to go into movements, or not hit just to change the way you look.

Another thing you can do is hit slow and then speed up your hitting (this have a great deal to do with the music). When you are dancing you want to think about moving to the right, left, forward, and backward. You also want to think about leaning, bending over while you are hitting (bending over forward), leaning to the side, and going in and out of ground moves. Don’t always hit standing in the up position.

You also can travel on the dance floor with side guide; forward guide, back slide, and S walk. There are moves like knee shifts (this is when you are on the ground resting on one leg then you change to the other leg. You also can go in circle with this move. You basically do a flex like movement to turn you around). Forward and backward knee guide (there are many different types). Try moving your arms in different position and levels as you are hitting. Sometimes you want to hit and just stop (this is called dime stopping), or while you are hitting you want to go into a pose. Play around a little and try to develop you own personal poses. You also can look at other poppers and learn some poses from them. It good doing this move to end your, can you imagine dancing as you walk of the floor and you go into a pose as you finish

These are not all the different movements you can do to get around on the dance floor, but they will help you move around. Take the time to learn the others and keep on practicing these moves. Take the time to really lean how to move with your dancing.

I like to have two type of practice sessions. One practice session is my technique practice session. This is the session I practice on technical aspect of Popping.

The second practice session is improvise practice session. I start off standing still just listening to the music. I stand there for a while just to let the music enter my body. Once I’m really feeling the music I start dancing. Try doing this with you eye close for a little while then open them. This is where you really learn how to interpret the music. In this second session don’t worry about wrong or right, just focus on the beat and how you want to dance to it.

Now I think I cover some of the ways to move in different directions while dancing. Once you learn how to move with your dancing you want to consider a hitting style. Look at different Popping video or Poppers in person and try different hitting styles.
Some Poppers only pop in one style while others pop in many. It’s up to you. You also can mix hitting styles (this is called freestyle hitting.)

Once you develop an hitting style start playing with the different moves like Waving, Cobra, Tutting, just to name a few. Then you want to move to the body effects moves like Animation, 3d/strobe, Ticking, just to name a few.

Make sure you practice with some music you enjoy Popping to, and always remember to “Pop what cha got”.